


Gods & Monsters

by blueincandescence



Category: And Then There Were None (TV 2015), And Then There Were None - Christie, SS-GB (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Spies, altered backstories, noir, romantic suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 08:45:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18546316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: Philip Lombard is no collaborator. Vera Claythorne is no innocent. Together, they could deal a significant blow to the Nazi occupation of Great Britain. If they don't kill each other first.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a side effect of watching And Then There Were None (2015) and SS-GB (2017) back-to-back. Not sure about the fandom for either, but if you like spy noir and complicated romance this might be for you. It’s definitely AU, though. Characters are taken from ATTWN and inserted into the SS-GB premise. Backstories are on the lighter side of morally gray, but the characters are still despicable enough to keep things interesting. Basically, fewer innocent victims, more good old-fashioned Nazi-killing.

Philip Lombard is no collaborator.

Philip knows this to be true even as he stares hard into a dirty, cracked mirror at a black uniform, a red armband, a Swastika. He knows this to be true even though plenty would say the skull emblazoned on the cap he dons suits his reputation true enough.

The muttering dies down as Philip returns to the bar. Old men turn their backs. Young men brave glares, as if courting death were the only honor left. Women who might have been charmed by good looks and better diamonds bow their heads in prayer for invisibility. Against them all, Philip sets his teeth.

Slander never bothered him before the Battle of Britain. Nor honor, come to that. Politics were not his line. The wars he waged, no one wore a uniform. Easier to switch sides that way. The SS-GB like a mercenary. Currency is the sincerest form of loyalty, and Philip has no score to settle on that account.

Tough luck Dublin is a smoking crater, and nothing—not Nazi champagne, not the piss lager Philip throws back—will wash the ash from his mouth. Only blood will do.

A tubby man with a pencil mustache comes in twenty minutes late, beady eyes darting around the bar. Christ. Any respect Philip had for the thin blue line evaporated the moment he met Detective Sergeant William Blore.

Philip picks them out a booth in a quiet corner, next to a window so any watchers can look their fill. He and Tubs have danced around mutual destruction for months. Philip wants a name, an address, a goddamn hidey-hole in which he can spill his guts.

Tubs confirms what Philip has long suspected: the Resistance, had they any capital, would pay him a song for all he’s got. “It’s the free bit that’s troublesome. Couldn’t trust it, could they? From the likes of you.” Through a cigarette drag comes, “No offense.”

“Offense taken, Tubs.” Philip leans forward. “You wouldn’t get caught. Not working for me.”

That sets Tubs off glancing again. “Oh, I’m quite fixed. Quite fixed. Anyways, this is all hypothetical-like. Don’t know any Resistance myself. Like to talk hypotheticals, get into their heads.” He snuffs out his cigarette, pleased with his subterfuge. And why shouldn’t he be? This moron—this coward—has done a hell of a lot more to thwart the Nazis than Philip has managed.

The gall of that is what lowers him to tailing Tubs. Third stop is to the courthouse. Philip's uniform causes some ripples as he takes a seat. Inquests are well below his paygrade. As it happens, these proceedings are more in his line than he realized. Charade of judge and jury aside, Philip knows an execution when he sees one.

One by one, the Honorable Lawrence Wargrave, presiding over a tribunal, sentences his countrymen and women. From stealing bread on up, all crimes are treason in the occupied zone. Wargrave’s gavel rings clear. His law is sound. There is a play of satisfaction around his withered mouth when hanging is the sentence. 

For the second time that afternoon, Philip recoils from a warped reflection. Death has never been a pleasure for him, but the rush of power he understands. To take a life is to become a god. Survival becomes immortality. Vengeance divine retribution. 

Philip has found no such power in killing for the Nazis. Only nausea and pain and, damn him for a fool, endless fucking introspection.

Wargrave calls a Miss Vera Claythorne to the stand. Miss Claythorne is a drab woman of indeterminate years on first glance. On leisurely second stare, the legs give her away. Long and lean like the rest of her. Strong, he’d wager, though Miss Claythorne is doing her best to exude fragility. Even from two rows back, her large, pale eyes are arresting.

It’s her mouth that fascinates Philip. Vera Claythorne is not only a pretender, she’s a liar, too. A masterful one.

The tale of misunderstanding and misfortune she spins, the sympathetic chords she strikes: “I never suspected a child—a child in my care—could be an instrument of the Resistance. To think of the danger they put him in—” Miss Claythorne breaks off to compose herself. “I would have never brought that ball to the park had I known what was inside. I would have turned it over to the SS—” Anguish rings a sweet note in her voice. “If only to spare the child.”

The child in question sits weeping with his mother, having already been sentenced to the Guernsey School for Reeducation.

Miss Claythorne locks eyes with the mother. “I failed to protect Cyril from those who would use him.” Tears threaten to spill. “I can only apologize to you, Mrs. Hamilton. And to the Court.”

Mrs. Hamilton accepts Miss Claythorne’s apology with a cry for mercy others echo around the room. Philip wants to give a standing ovation. Justice Wargrave is out-voiced and overruled. Senior judge or not, he’s still an Englishman on a German bench. Well done, Miss Claythorne.

Relief collapses those fine, healthy legs. Tubs catches her when she stumbles and helps usher her away from a hanging offense. A self-righteous woman in the front row grumbles, her knitting needles flashing with disdain. Miss Claythorne, Philip overhears, is only the third accused member of the Resistance to be acquitted on Justice Wargrave’s watch.

And Miss Claythorne—assuredly, fortuitously—is Resistance.

Philip hopes it will be a long reprieve for the enigmatic Miss Claythorne, though he would not take that bet. Odds of her resuming her Resistance work are already short. Making Philip’s acquaintance will only make them shorter.

For the length of his cigarette, Phillip contemplates a strategy. A good liar won't trust the truth, not from him. The whole world changing hadn't been enough to shift his reputation. Fine. Easier to play into it. Women have hated him before and still taken what was on offer. And anyone willing to set up a child as a patsy won't let a prim English front stop her getting what she wants. 

Philip does not feel sorry for Vera Claythorne. He likes her too well for that.

•


	2. Chapter 2

Vera Claythorne is no innocent.

Anyone would expect guilt and relief to weigh heavy on Vera’s shoulders as she is escorted through halls barred off with barbed wire and armed guards. Her head bows, her knees tremble. The convicted stare her down. Once, she might have shrunk from them, buried her shame alongside her satisfaction at having been so convincing. Vera has always got away with things. Petty crimes. Private loathing.

Vera meets the eyes of her fellow Resistance and, in them, she sees her own cold satisfaction reflected back. Cyril Hamilton, the ball, the false plans. The SS-GB has fallen for Vera’s distraction, and so the real work can continue. Vera has got away with it, so she and others in her network are free to act. Not bad for a governess.

True, a child has been ripped from his mother’s arms. A child Vera has long loved and resented in equal measure. No matter. Hugo Hamilton lies dead at the bottom of the English Channel. There are far greater evils now.

Vera is taken to an office out of the way while her release papers are sorted. Detective Sergeant Blore waits with her, offering to share a cigarette. Vera eases into questions posed like passing the time. Nazis have too much faith in their bureaucracy. Vera would see that faith exploited.

“Oh, loads of paperwork. Heaps.” Blore gives her a once-over. “My department is always hiring secretaries. I could put in a word.”

If Blore is trying for a leer, it does neither of them any credit. No heat. Not like the heat on Vera at the inquest. She never broke character, never. She delivered her performance aware of an unknown set of eyes in the crowd, watching her. Trying to see.

A remembered shiver of dread becomes a note of fear in her voice. “I don’t suppose the SS-GB would hire a secretary involved in an inquest. It’s too much scandal for governess posts.” A brave face works wonders on the working class. “Well. Belts were made to be tightened.”

Blore pats her shoulder. “There, there, Miss Claythorne. It’s not so dark as that. You’ve been proved innocent. Saves the trouble of a background check, don’t it?”

Vera turns wide eyes on Blore. He strikes her as the kind of man who could be seduced by a chance to play the hero. “I’d be ever so grateful.”

Chest puffed out, Blore leaves to see what he can do. Vera is glad to wait. A secretarial position in the heart of occupied Scotland Yard. Filing cabinets brimming with secrets. Locked doors in need of a hairpin. Her fingers itch just to imagine.

A cold awareness of her surroundings sneaks into her reverie. The small office has grown quiet. Cigarette smoke wafts toward the window. Vera does not want to turn her head, but the feeling of being watched has her by the nerves.

She meets eyes that gleam SS black. Vera recognizes the man from the inquest, though this is the first she’s seen of him. Her watcher leans a hip on a counter, lithe and certain even in repose. The sweep of his jaw, his cheekbones are as hard as the peak of his Nazi cap. The voice he greets her in is Irish.  

Collaborator. A rush of loathing burns hotter than his stare.

Seeming content with the silence stretching between them, the collaborator takes a long drag of his cigarette. His eyes drift to her legs. Vera finds her skirt has ridden up, exposing garters and stockings worse for wear. She tugs at her hem. A smirk lights up the collaborator’s arrogant face.

Handsome as Lucifer and twice as wicked, an old schoolmarm tuts in the back of Vera’s memory. Wanting Hugo had been far from Vera’s first mistake. She stands to leave.

The collaborator is between her and the door. His pleasure in that small power over her is obvious. “I hear you have ambition to be a secretary, Miss Claythorne.” He takes a long drag and exhales. “I have an opening in mind. Wants filling.”

Vera bristles at the crudity, as little as it surprises her. She has never wondered at the type of man who would welcome fascism. They always start as the everyday sort of monster. “I already have a more tempting offer.”

It is the softness of “Do you now?” that sets off dread in Vera.

Detective Sergeant Blore returns looking like someone snuffed the wind out of his sails. He consults a file folder rather than look at Vera. “The good news is, I did find you something. But, ah, I would make a note of caution—” Blore starts at a low chuckle. He blinks at the collaborator. Snaps the file folder shut and turns his resignation on Vera. “I see you’ve met the man.”

Fighting the tightness in her throat, Vera says, “Not properly.”

“Philip.” His teeth are long and white. “Lombard.”

Vera gives no indication she has heard his name before. Not an everyday monster at all.

“Mr. Lombard requires a secretary.”

Mr. Lombard requires a swift kick to the crotch. “Among other things.” Vera does not hide the acid in her voice. It serves her purpose.

If Philip Lombard had wanted her willing, he would have led with charm. Vera has no doubt he is capable of it. What is charm to a collaborator drunk on power? A man like that wants prey. He suspects her just enough, wants her just enough to toy with her.

“Er—” Blore looks between Mr. Lombard and Vera. “Well, it is quite a high position. Still Scotland Yard. I’ll take you to lunch.”

“Getting ahead of yourself, Tubs. Miss Claythorne hasn't accepted.” Lombard tilts his head, coaxing her with charm at last. “You could always say no.”

That is his most hateful statement yet. There is no safety in could. An hour ago, Vera had thought she’d got away with something. Either option before her now is another noose around her neck. 

Vera turns to Blore, cutting Lombard out of her sight. “Are those the papers I should sign?”

When Vera had come up with the Cyril plot, when she had gone through with it, she told herself she had no choice. Anything for the cause. And here is the perfect opportunity to prove she wasn’t lying to herself. Serves her right.

Vera signs here, initials there with a steady hand. Whatever Lombard thinks he’s getting from her, she’ll give him that and so much more. Vera will collect this monster’s secrets, his weaknesses and bury him with them.

Not bad for a secretary.

•


End file.
